Comments | naturalliving: blackberry worms? grubs?

tofuowl in naturalliving

blackberry worms? grubs?

Aug 25, 2011 19:52

I just brought home a half pint of delicious-looking blackberries from our local farmer's market. I got half-way through a bowl of berries before I noticed a dark wormy/grubby looking fellow creeping around on one of the berries. I'm now a little...unnerved. Growing up on the East Coast, I never had very much contact with fresh picked blackberries ( Read more... )

food: preparation, food, food: raw, food: safety, food: organic, farmers market/csa

Comments 9

(The comment has been removed)

tofuowl August 26 2011, 03:55:09 UTC

haha I guess at least you know any worms are incapacitated if you slice and dice them up first.

stainedfeathers August 26 2011, 05:24:16 UTC

Unless it's a worm like the Planaria *snerk* Then you just get more.

tofuowl August 26 2011, 05:53:15 UTC

O.O; .....eep.

Thread 5

flightopheonix August 26 2011, 03:13:20 UTC

Creepy crawlies are going to be on lots of organic/natural fruits and veggies. Most of the time, picking them off and washing before eating will take care of it.

Some people suggest soaking your fresh berries in salt water to eliminate and or drive out any bugs/larvae that may be there. Since I am rather obsessive about avoiding added protein in insect form, this is probably the approach I would take with fresh berries.

tofuowl August 26 2011, 03:53:39 UTC

Thanks! That seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to be obsessive about to me :)

Do you have any idea what concentration of salt I should shoot for, or how long I should soak them? Do the bugs/larvae tend to float, or do you end up fishing the berries out of the buggy soup at the end?

flightopheonix August 26 2011, 14:49:05 UTC

Just a couple T of salt in cold water (you don't want the berries to get smooshy) left for 15 minutes or so. Most critters will float to the top, then you can rinse the berries in cool fresh water again so they aren't salted.

grace_om August 26 2011, 04:06:25 UTC

I think little green worms are pretty common on blackberries. AFAIK, they won't hurt you -- I'm sure I've eaten a few without realizing =8-O. What I usually do is dump them all into a bowl of cold water for a few minutes then pick through to make sure any worms have floated to the surface.

cindyanne1 August 26 2011, 09:56:54 UTC

Yep, I wouldn't worry about it. We've all probably eaten way more bugs than we think we have, especially with the organic fruits and veggies since they are supposed to be raised without pesticides.